A giant black hole is thought to lurk at the center of the Milky Way, but it has never been directly seen. Now astronomers have predicted what the first pictures of this black hole will look like when taken with technology soon to be available.

Helioviewer.org is a web-based visualization tool for solar physics data based on the JPEG 2000 image compression standard. JPEG 2000 offers many useful new features and has the potential to revolutionize the way high-resolution image data are disseminated and analyzed.

As 2012 comes to a close, some might wonder what is looming sky-wise for 2013.What celestial events might we look forward to seeing?

We have selected what I consider the top 13"skylights" (get it?) for the coming year, and have listed them in chronological order. Not all these night sky events will be visible from any one locality (you may have to travel to catch all the eclipses), but you can observe many of them from the comfort of your backyard, weather permitting.